


I won’t say I’m in love

by LittlesWords



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Cursed Child - Thorne & Rowling
Genre: $1000 to those who can find the flowers’ meanings, 12am fic, Angst, Au where albus got sorted into Gryffindor, M/M, Oneshot, au where him and rose didn’t sit in the same car as scorpius, hanahaki
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-26
Updated: 2018-02-26
Packaged: 2019-03-24 12:28:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,211
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13811193
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittlesWords/pseuds/LittlesWords
Summary: The Hanahaki disease - an illness where the patient throws- and coughs up flower petals born from one-sided love. The infection can be removed through surgery, but the feelings disappear along with the petals. It can only be cured without side effects if the feelings are returned.





	I won’t say I’m in love

“Are you catching a cold?” Lily asked her brother while he coughed into his handkerchief, shaking his head.

  
“I’m not!” Albus reached for his goblet to empty it of pumpkin juice. His throat felt rough and dry like sandpaper, his lungs… heavy. He’d seen madam Pomfrey but all she could prescribe him was a week in bed and hot milk with honey. He’d done so but it hadn’t done anything for him. As his grades, he’d gotten worse over the following weeks to the point where he’d had to leave potions. The corridor had echoed with his wretched sounds and strained breath.

  
“Have you written to dad?” Asked Lily on their way to the Gryffindor tower. “Maybe he knows what to do?”

  
Albus shook his head, the black curls danced around his face. His usual healthy brown teint was now replaced with a shade near yellowed parchment, grim and sickly. Every time he looked in the mirror, he asked himself why he did; the dark circles under his eyes, the faint yellow-ish blush splayed over his cheeks. It was a mystery to him how the other students didn't walk around him in a large circle, fearing he had spattergroit... spattergroit made you purple, not yellow.

"Are you alright?" he looked up when a voice spoke to him. Albus' heart jumped, stopped and jumped again when he recognised the other by the grey eyes and blonde hair. He stuttered an 'I'm fine' before he hurried up to Lily, whom were standing at the bottom of the stairs. He waved her off before she could ask who it had been. His heart kept on jumping and stopping, jumping and stopping, his palms were sweaty, he kept telling himself it was _nothing, absolutely nothing_! He couldn't - he wouldn't admit it to himself, he denied it every day. Albus stopped, breathing heavily. The stairs to the tower these days felt like climbing Mount Everest without an oxygen mask (or whatever one used if not magic) - Albus had to stop every flight of stairs to catch his breath before continuing. At this point he’d told Lily and Rose to leave him behind so they wouldn’t be late for their classes, but Lily always stayed with him. Albus had a feeling that she was scared, and thought he’d collapse at any time given. 

  
Albus felt relief flush over him when they finally crawled through the hole behind the portrait, and sat in front of the fire. He told himself that the heat would do him good although he now doubted it. Maybe if he flung himself into the flames...

  
“Are you sure you shouldn’t just go to bed?” Rose came up behind them, leaning forward over the sofa to look at him. “You look like the ghoul in the attic at my grandparents’.”

  
“Thank you, Rose.” Albus wheezed lightly. Maybe he’d gotten asthma. But wouldn’t madam Pomfrey just flick her wand or make him drink an elixir to cure it? Then it wasn't asthma, he concluded and stood.

  
In the second he did, a pain struck him right in the gut, so sudden that he fell on his knees, hugging himself. The sound of his heartbeat banged loudly in his ears, his throat clogged, he couldn’t breathe, _I can’t breathe_ , he was going to pass out -

  
Albus threw up.

  
No - he realised he… he _coughed_ up. He coughed up flower heads- and petals; melianthus honeyflower petals, four-leaved clovers and hemlock flowers, it felt like thorns ripping his throat open.

  
Lily uttered a horrified high pitched sound, Rose clasped her hand in front of her mouth at the sight. They’d never seen anything like this. Albus spluttered a few times before sinking down in a lying position on the floor, trying to catch his breath. A sickening sweet taste spread on his tongue, nothing like the stomach acid when you’ve thrown up.

  
“Hospital wing, now!” a 7th year student said. Albus recognised him as a Beater on the Quidditch team, broadshouldered with a face like a Norwegian mountain troll. As if he didn’t weigh more than a pair of grapes, the Beater lifted him up bridal style, when they were out of the hole behind the portrait, and brought him to the hospital wing. Lily had insisted on that they brought one of each flower so madam Pomfrey had more to work from, and when the student, Anthony, had waved her request off, she’d come with them.

  
Madam Pomfrey was about to turn in for the night when they came to the hospital wing; Albus struggled to breathe, a coarse whimpering clawing its way out of him. Lily showed the flowers to Madam Pomfrey, as Anthony gently placing the boy on a bed. She explained what had happened while madam Pomfrey searched in her books to find an illness that matched the symptoms the Potter-girl described, casting a glance to Albus who now hardly breathed.

  
“Hanahaki.”

  
“What?” Anthony tilted his head to the side, looking down at the lady, confusion painted on his face.

  
“Hanahaki,” madam Pomfrey repeated, getting up to examine the flowers next to Albus, “its origin is in Japan. It causes the sufferer to cough up flowers that starts to grow in their lungs. If untreated, the flowers will grow and eventually suffocate and kill the pa-“

  
“Albus will die?!” Lily cried out, tears starting to spill down her cheeks.

  
“No no, dear!” Said Madam Pomfrey quickly, handing her a handkerchief. “If it’s only now he’s started to grow flowers then I have time to find a cure.”

  
The Japanese (hopefully) had a cure. She’d never encountered this disease before. It wasn’t often she was taken aback but this had her feeling unsure. She hardly treated life-threatening diseases where she had limited amount of time and no clue of where to start with the treatment.

  
“You go back to your dormitory,” she waved at the children, “he’ll be alright again.”

  
Reluctantly, Lily and Anthony left the hospital wing.

Madam Pomfrey scanned the pages shortly to form a picture of the disease. _Can only be treated through surgery. Oh, how bothersome_ , she thought, tapping her finger on the page. So this had to be done the muggle way.

  
“Now,” she turned to the boy, “you must tell me - are you in love with anyone, Potter?”

  
“N-no,” Albus croaked, shaking his head. “I’m not in love.”

  
Lies. All lies.

  
Albus was terribly in love with a blonde-haired boy with the prettiest grey eyes and softest smile he’d ever seen. He'd shared compartment on the Hogwarts Express with him, years ago, he loved to eat peppermint imps while he read in the library, he didn’t like Quidditch just like Albus, he was tall and pale and beautiful and clever, too perfect - Albus sometimes doubted the boy really was a human and not a fae in a human form. He was in Slytherin and his name was Scorpius Malfoy.

  
_The Hanahaki disease - an illness where the patient throws- and coughs up flower petals born from one-sided love. The infection can be removed through surgery, but the feelings disappear along with the petals. It can only be cured without side effects if the feelings are returned._

  
Albus wouldn’t say he was in love. He’d take his feeling to the grave. 


End file.
